“Strait” Sailing Past Sicily

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Being one of those scheduled sea days, we slept in and went to breakfast in the Dining Room. Sharon and I had gone to Vigil Mass, so there was no need to go again this morning. I had the American breakfast with eggs over medium and link sausage and Sharon enjoyed her scrambled eggs.

Sharon wanted to go back to the cabin and adjust her choppers; so, I went up to the Crow’s Nest to scout out a place for us to play our Sudoku challenge. I bumped into Ruth on the way and said hey, she was scurrying off to her next activity. We’d see each other again this evening when we would be having dinner with her and some friends in the Pinnacle.

Sharon arrived and we played our first game where I easily dispatched Sharon with five seconds to spare. We started the Hard puzzle and it was requiring more than a little annotation. Sharon eventually couldn’t deal with her rambling scrawls and got a third sheet, copied over the solutions she knew to be right and continued from there. Then something odd happened. She beat me on the Hard Game for the second day in a row. Now this has happened before; but, she’s never won the Hard Game three straight days so she’s in danger of upsetting the balance of the universe, should she beat me again tomorrow. Oh yes, Sharon would just edit it in anyway, she beat me by a good fifteen minutes. But at least I wasn’t stuck with a “DNF”! Who knows what tomorrow may hold.

Sharon stopped by the casino to play her machine. She’s been having some trouble playing either of the two machines that were good to her on the previous leg because they’ve caught the eye of some newbie cruisers. I watched the blackjack table for a while, but, without a 3:2 payout for blackjack at any of the open tables, I’m not interested in playing here. They have a “Lucky Ladies” side bet that gives a bonus payout for the player’s first two cards if they add up to twenty. It pays 4:1 if the player gets twenty, either two face cards or tens, or an ace-nine. If the twenty is two cards of the same suit then there is a 9:1 payout. If the twenty is a pair and matching suit then the reward is 19:1. If the matching pair is a pair of “Queen of Hearts”, then the payout is 125:1. And, if the dealer has blackjack and the player has a pair of heart-queens (and has placed a wager on the optional bet) then the player wins 1,000:1. Just as I walked over those sitting on the first-base side gasp, and murmur from the peanut gallery confirmed that something special was about to happen. I realized that the guy at third-base had just been dealt two queens of hearts, and that the player had made a $1 bet on this optional Lucky Ladies bet. Lights in the table circled a rotating dot pattern around the bet (to remind the dealer that this bet gets settled first). On top of all that, the dealer was showing a 10 face up. The dealer blanched and motioned for the pit boss to come over and observe. The pit boss nodded for her to check for blackjack, and everyone held their breath; but, the dealer didn’t have an ace as a hole card. The dealer paid off the third base bet with a stack of twenty $5 red chips.

Sharon got a special invitation to the Mariner’s Reception at 11 AM, and joined friends at the reception. I didn’t have enough days to make the cut-off for the reception this cruise. I decided to play Bingo, and got a six-pack for $35. I was preparing my sheets to play by popping each of the poke-and-fold tabs. This makes it easier to fold them during the game and easier to keep up with Joel, who calls a fast-paced game. The six-pack was particularly difficult to get ready. I was having real problems with the upper right square. Having bought the card year the end, the game was about to start. That’s when I accidently tore my card halfway across. Sigh! This was going to make it really difficult, and Joel had just started calling the game. I managed to make do. I was the first person to stand in the first game after just five calls. Half the room was standing when someone else called “Bingo”. I was the second person to stand in the second “Four-Corner” game, but two calls later somebody who stood after me called “Bingo”. That was the last I got to stand. Oh well, it was a lousy card anyway!

We went up to lunch in the Lido and Sharon had the roast lamb. I tried the Asian curry fish, some rice and another curry dish. It was a nice change from pizza.

We had most of our team for Team Trivia today. Dave asked “What is the name of the tune that has the lyrics, “Go, go Johnny, Go…” I guess I’d better get this one right. Johnny B. Goode. Is the moon getting gradually closer to the earth? Our teammate insisted yes, that they’d had this question during a recent Pub Trivia… so fine, we went with that answer. Unfortunately, the moon is actually drifting slightly away! We didn’t know the color of blood in a lobster. It isn’t red, or green, or yellow; but, it is blue! We also missed another repeat question… What is the strongest bone in humans? We went with “Skull”. Mandible (or jaw bone) would have been a better answer. We knew who the one-eyed cartoon mariner was that married his longtime squeeze in 1999? He eats a lot of spinach. Our teammates did know what finger has the fastest growing fingernail. We hadn’t a clue as to which rapper became popular with “You Can’t Touch This”. That rapper’s name is MC Hammer. In the Lion King, we couldn’t come up with the malevolent uncle of Simba. That would be Scar. I’m longing for the “good old days” when we lost by just one point… we lost by quite a bit more today! While returning the pencil to Dave, I asked him, where he was from. He replied “Boulder, Colorado”, but he had to rush off to get ready for the Captain’s Talk in the Showroom. This impromptu talk was to address passengers about the weather and the reasons for his recent decisions to miss two consecutive ports.

We encountered some people at dinner, and others up in the Crow’s Nest who’d expressed real anger at not getting into the past two ports, even calling it a conspiracy by Holland America to make more money by selling more drinks. Never mind that they’d given away free drinks for an hour in lieu of the normal “Happy Hour”. One lady felt they should put people into the lifeboats and tender them to shore (in some very rough seas). The captain discussed the weather, and outlined the difficulties of navigating in 70 to 90 knot winds, especially between narrow straights, or within a harbor. Not to mention the need to get pilots onboard. Most of the people in the audience understood that safety was the captain’s number one concern, and a couple who asked to speak personally thanked the captain. Sharon was on Deck 3 in the Showroom and was near a vocal lady who was complaining to those around her of how missing these ports had ruined their cruise (and clearly felt the captain was to blame). Sharon had come down from the Crow’s Nest ahead of me to save us some seats, but when I got to the Deck 3 entrance to the Showroom it was roped off. I went down to Deck 2 which was absolutely packed. I stood watching most of the discussion with the Captain. I went back to the cabin and met up again with Sharon.

We went to play Bingo and I purchased two three-packs for the two of us (Sharon said it was my turn to buy). Joel tried to upsell me from the $25 three-pack to the better value six-pack (but after my experience after that morning session, I don’t want to handle another poke-and-fold six-pack! I handed Sharon her sheet. She was complaining that she wasn’t getting any chances on the first game and I asked if she wanted to change sheets (I wasn’t doing much better). There were a lot of calls for the first game. Then a meek “Bingo” sounded out, but it wasn’t ruled as valid because the square was missing the last number called in the bingo solution. Oops! Someone else did call bingo two calls later; and, despite twenty calls, there was only one winner. Show host Joel moved on to the “Four-Corner” game, and Sharon and I had just one number between us after six calls. Four calls later somebody else called “Bingo”. To my delight, the next game was not the “Small-x” that Joel likes to call; but, it was another two-letter game that Joel called “B-G”: one vertical bingo with either the letter B or G. These cards just don’t seem to be working out, and we didn’t come close in the “B-G” game. In the blackout game I thought I was doing well enough, but it wasn’t long before Joel announced that nobody was going to win the bonus Jackpot of $20,000 for getting bingo in 46 calls or less. I still needed ten numbers, which I thought was pretty good until I noticed that Sharon only needed seven numbers. I got a couple of numbers and was down to needing just seven numbers myself. Unfortunately, someone was now standing. I got a couple more numbers; but several people were now standing. Sharon still needed seven numbers. Joel called G-58, and I pushed through this number on all three of my squares; and, I also stood up needing just O-68. Joel then said “O-68” and I shouted “Bingo”. You could hear the groans, but my bingo was confirmed. Joel said “My you are a greedy bunch, none of you are sharing your bingos with anyone!” I’d just won $449.

We went out on the promenade and took so pictures on deck as we cruised through a narrow strait. The captain’s talk had addressed the dangers of navigating these narrow waters during stormy conditions which can cause a large ship to drift quickly onto the rocks. Once clearing the narrow gap we spotted a pilot boat underway just beyond our wake. Then it darted in and maneuvered alongside the ms Nieuw Amsterdam, eventually pressing its rubber bumpers against the hull. We saw the pilot jump from our ship to the front of the pilot boat. He made his way around the narrow walkway on his boat, and then waved at the many on our cruise ship waiving and applauding him.

We met Ruth and her friends for drinks in the Pinnacle Bar before heading over for dinner. I had the shrimp cocktail and the crab cake appetizer. I ordered the bone-in ribeye medium rare with green peppercorn sauce. Sharon ordered the small fillet with mashed potatoes. We got a small sampling of all of the sides because there were five of us, so this included wilted spinach, Brussel sprouts, mushrooms and asparagus. The steaks were pretty darn delicious. The desserts are great too: I had the chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream and Sharon enjoys the “Not So Ordinary Baked Alaska” with Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Ice Cream.

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